


the desert stars never shine as bright

by coruscatingcatastrophe



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, But everyone loves him for it, Coming of Age, Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, Feelings? he doesn't know her, Friendship, Garrison AU, He's a disaster, Humor, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith (Voltron) is a Good Friend, Keith is a drama queen, Keith learns how to people, Keith's dad is the best, Keith's-dad-is-alive-au, Lance (Voltron) is a Dork, Lance (Voltron) is a Ray of Sunshine, Lance pines, Light Angst, M/M, Shiro (Voltron) is a Mess, Teen Romance, Teenage Dorks, Teenage Keith, a twilight reference because i really cant help myself, and take away his coffee before he literally dies, because whats a good high school au without some teen angst?, boy does he pine, but he'll deny it his entire life, copious amounts of sarcasm, i mean its a high school au so, i'll use that tag until the end of time i lOve my sunshine boy, like seriously, please feed him something besides Hot Pockets, remember to take your vitamins kids, teenage lance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:39:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29230905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coruscatingcatastrophe/pseuds/coruscatingcatastrophe
Summary: “The kid who sits next to me keeps trying to talk to me,” Keith complains to his father that night. “I don’t know how long I’m going to have to ignore him before he gets the hint. Earlier he tried to tell me that the moon’s gravitational pull to Earth was romantic.Romantic.That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! What does that evenmean,Dad? It’s justscience.There’s nothing romantic about science!”His dad hums.“I don’t know, I think I can kinda see where the kid’s coming from. Maybe next time, you can ask him what he means. Start a conversation about it.”“I don’t want to start a conversation about it,” Keith grumbles. “I’ve been trying toavoidconversation.”“He’s just trying to be friendly, Keith,”his father chuckles.“It’s not the worst thing in the world.”Maybe it is,Keith thinks, but doesn’t say. “Whatever,” he mumbles instead. “So, what’s the new gossip about Mrs. Finkle and the guy who keeps digging up her rose bushes?”-Keith Kogane joins the Galaxy Garrison with a mission, and that mission doesnotinclude making friends  or falling in love. Fate, evidently, has other plans.
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith & Keith's Father (Voltron), Keith & Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 61





	the desert stars never shine as bright

_“How was your day?”_ is the first thing Keith’s dad says to him when he picks up the phone. Keith, who has been a wound-up ball of nervous energy all day, feels his soul relax at the sound of his father’s voice. He collapses onto his tiny, uncomfortable dorm bed with an exaggerated groan, ignoring the dirty look his asshole roommate sends him from where he’s—Asshole Roomate will later quote—“trying to study—you know, the way future leaders of the world do.” 

(Something in his tone will imply: _unlike certain people here._ Keith will tell him that he doesn’t need to study, because he doesn’t intend to lead anyone, and even if he _did_ want to become a leader, he’s already leagues smarter than Asshole Roommate could ever hope to be, so he’s pretty sure Asshole Roommate is only insulting himself, in the end.) 

(Asshole Roommate will fume about that remark for days.) 

“Terrible,” Keith complains into his phone, rolling over to rest his elbows on his pillow. The pillowcase still smells like home—the fabric softener his dad uses and the eucalyptus-scented candles he keeps all over the house—and if Keith was an emotional person, that thought would make his eyes prickle up with gross, emotional homesickness. But Keith is totally _not emotional,_ so his eyes remain perfectly normal. 

The sound of his dad’s low, rasping laughter doesn’t help with that not-prickliness in his eyes. Keith closes them so he can ignore the feeling as his dad says, _“Aw, bud. What happened?”_

Keith isn’t sure what it is about his dad, but any time he asks a question like that, Keith can’t _help_ but answer, even when he doesn’t want to. Like the floodgates opening up, he spills out every detail of his day, starting from when he woke up. Because, _yeah,_ apparently the Galaxy Garrison’s shittiness always _has_ to start exactly at five forty-five _a.m._ As in, in the _morning._ In Keith’s expert opinion, it should be _illegal_ to be up that early. 

“The teachers here are all idiots,” he laments into the phone. He can imagine his dad on the other side, a million states away in Texas, sitting on their couch with a cup of black coffee in one hand while he nods along sympathetically. “Dad, all the brochures _said_ I would be getting the best, top-notch education the world has to offer on space exploration, but so far it’s all stuff I _already_ know. Earlier, I asked a question in Astrophysics to _test_ my professor, and he got the answer wrong! _No one_ here is smart—it’s ridiculous!” 

Asshole Roommate scoffs from his side of the room. Keith ignores him. 

His dad chuckles. _“Have you ever thought that maybe the teachers aren’t stupid—maybe it’s just that you’re even smarter than you thought? You’ve been studying space since you were five years old, Keith. Of course you know a lot more than your fellow students.”_

“Well, yeah. But _still,”_ Keith grumbles. “I’m just saying, they should have _something_ special to offer that I can’t learn for free by Googling. Dad, if I were you, I’d be requesting a refund for my education, because so far it’s worthless.” 

His dad hums. It’s that _I’m-an-adult-and-I’m-wise_ hum that Shiro is always trying (and failing) to replicate. _“I’m sure it will get better with time, Keith. Keep in mind you are only a freshman, and it’s only been a week since classes started. You have to give the people around you time to catch up to you. Remember, patience—”_

“Yields focus, yeah, yeah.” Keith sighs heavily, with all the melodrama his fourteen-year-old body can muster. “It’s just so . . . _annoying._ I hate waiting. It feels like I’m wasting my time here.” 

_“Nothing you do will ever be a waste of time, if you focus on the things that you enjoy,”_ his dad tells him. His dad tells him things like that all the time. _“And hey, this could be the perfect opportunity to finally make some friends.”_

Keith pulls his phone away from his ear to squint suspiciously at it. He hopes his dad can feel it, even as far away as he is. He returns the phone to his ear. “I don’t need friends. Or _want_ friends. The people here are horrible, Dad. My roommate is an asshole.” 

Said roommate squawks indignantly. Once again, he goes ignored. His dad laughs again. 

_“Okay, maybe you don’t have to be friends with him,”_ he amends. _“Still, surely there’s_ someone _you might get along with. You’ll never know until you try, son.”_

“I guess,” he grumbles. “But, still . . .” 

_“I know,”_ his dad says. By the tone of his voice, Keith knows that he really does. His dad has always been the one person who can understand exactly what he’s feeling or thinking without him having to struggle to find the words. He feels his eyes begin to prickle again, and digs the palm of the hand not holding his phone into his eyes. 

He curls onto his side, the phone now pressed between his ear and the pillow. Quietly now, so his roommate won’t hear, he says, “Hey, Dad? D’you really think this place will help me find Mom?” 

His dad is silent for a long, dragging minute. When he sighs, Keith feels it echo in his soul. But then he takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again, he’s back to his regular, upbeat self. _“I can’t make you any promises, son,”_ he tells him, _“But I sure hope so. I think that out of anywhere on this planet, the Galaxy Garrison is the best place to be.”_

Keith will remember those words any time he starts to get homesick, or fed up with the people around him. He’s never gotten along well with others, and it seems like everyone at the Garrison is _others_ times ten thousand. But he’s doing this for his family. He’s doing this so they can finally be together again. So they never have to be apart ever again. 

_“Well, I think it’s about time for me to turn in for the night,”_ his dad says after a long moment. _“Have you started on your homework yet?”_

“Already finished,” Keith tells him. This place is so boring that there’s nothing to do _but_ finish his homework on time. 

_“That’s my boy,”_ his dad says, the approval ringing clearly in his voice. It makes Keith smile, even though he didn’t really do anything special—it’s just homework. _“Well, make sure you get enough sleep, alright? You can’t become the greatest space explorer Earth’s ever seen without a full night’s rest.”_

“Yeah, okay,” Keith says. This is his least favorite part of the night: saying goodbye. 

“‘Night, Dad,” he sighs. “Love you.” 

_“Goodnight, son,”_ his dad answers softly. _“I love you, too.”_

A moment later, the phone beeps, signalling that their call has disconnected. Keith sighs again, shifts onto his back, and stares at the ceiling. It’s just a blank sheet of white: cold and uninteresting, so unlike the glow-in-the-dark stars that decorate his navy blue-painted ceiling back home. He misses them so fiercely that his heart twinges. 

“You know, not being such a snob would do you a world of good, here,” Asshole Roommate says snottily, “You’re not going to get very far by looking down on the people around you.” 

“Shut up, Asshole,” Keith grumbles. He turns off the lamp on his side of the room, curls up under his blankets, and tries to sleep. But like every night since he started school here, what little sleep he gets is shallow and unsatisfying—just like all the people here. 

  
  


_____

The kid who sits next to him in Shiro’s class is the most annoying person on the planet. Well, maybe not _quite_ as annoying as Asshole Roommate. But close enough. 

He’s always _moving._ He’ll tap his pencil against his notebook. He’ll bounce his knee under his desk so hard that the desk rattles. He hums to himself during pop quizzes. And he’s _always trying to talk to him._

“Hi Keith,” he says brightly when Keith sits down. Keith doesn’t respond. It’s seven in the morning and they don’t serve coffee in this horrid establishment. 

“So I heard there’s going to be another pop quiz today,” the kid continues, as if he hadn’t noticed Keith’s failure to respond to him now. Or any other morning that happens to fall on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. “Man, Professor Shirogane sure loves pop quizzes, doesn’t he? At this point it’s more surprising if he _doesn’t_ give a pop quiz.” 

The kid actually isn’t wrong. Keith is positive that Shiro does it just to mess with him, because he’s the worst cousin in the world. Sometimes Keith would like nothing more than to throw his comedically large Astronomy textbook at his stupidly-symmetrical face. 

Still, a pop quiz today is just . . . _so_ great. It means that he gets to listen to his desk-neighbor hum the entirety of Taylor Swift’s new album while he doodles aliens on the back of his completed test sheet. Shiro is the only one who lets him get away with drawing on his tests. Not to brag or anything, but Keith bets it’s the product of nepotism. He loves being the favorite. 

The kid is bouncing his knee already. Out of the corner of his eye, Keith sees him scratch at the back of his neck. A nervous tic, maybe? 

“So uh, listen,” he begins, “I was wondering if, y’know, maybe you’d like to—“

Shiro enters the room, looking a little frazzled as he takes a sip from his jumbo-sized coffee tumbler. _Unfair,_ Keith scowls as he passes by. He’s going to have to sneak into the teachers’ lounge and steal it later. “Sorry I’m late,” he apologizes to the class at large as he dumps his bag onto the messy desk. Shiro is the most disorganized teacher the Garrison has to offer. Keith would wonder why the hell his cousin is such a disaster of an adult, except he knows that Shiro probably just stayed up way too late watching romantic comedies again. He seriously has a problem. He should probably seek professional help. Or maybe just get a boyfriend. 

“Okay! So we’re going to turn to chapter four of the textbook,” Shiro announces as he does something at his computer. A moment later, the header of section four-point-six of the textbook is projected onto the wall behind him. “I’m sure you all know the drill by now. Feel free to take pictures of the notes as we go, as long as you remember to copy them down on paper before the exam next week. Today we’ll be talking about the moon in relation to Earth’s ocean tides. But first,” Shiro looks up from his computer, a horrid, wolfish grin overtaking his stupid face as he grins to the very back of the room, right at Keith. “It’s time for a pop quiz!”

The entire class groans in unison. It’s the only time they ever show a united front. 

Keith takes it a step further and slams his face into his open textbook. The pages smell like dead trees and teenage despair. 

  
  


_____

“The kid who sits next to me keeps trying to talk to me,” Keith complains to his father that night. “I don’t know how long I’m going to have to ignore him before he gets the hint. Earlier he tried to tell me that the moon’s gravitational pull to Earth was romantic. _Romantic._ That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! What does that even _mean,_ Dad? It’s just _science._ There’s nothing romantic about science!”

His dad hums. _“I don’t know, I think I can kinda see where the kid’s coming from. Maybe next time, you can ask him what he means. Start a conversation about it.”_

“I don’t want to start a conversation about it,” Keith grumbles. “I’ve been trying to _avoid_ conversation.” 

_“He’s just trying to be friendly, Keith,”_ his father chuckles. _“It’s not the worst thing in the world.”_

_Maybe it is,_ Keith thinks, but doesn’t say. “Whatever,” he mumbles instead. “So, what’s the new gossip about Mrs. Finkle and the guy who keeps digging up her rose bushes?” 

His dad is successfully distracted, moving on to tell Keith about the latest drama between their next-door neighbors. Keith snickers and provides witty commentary at all the appropriate places, but his heart isn’t really in it. He keeps thinking about that kid in class, and how his dad thinks he should try to befriend him, and how making friends is the last thing he ever intended to do when he came here. 

_You have a mission,_ he reminds himself. _You can’t afford any distractions._

“You’re a real idiot,” Asshole Roommate comments when Keith and his dad hang up for the night. 

Keith rolls his eyes. “You’re a bigger one,” he replies, and doesn’t care how childish he sounds. Asshole Roommate begins sputtering again. 

The people here are _awful._ Keith closes his eyes and dreams of the day he finally gets to leave. 

_____

“Get up, loser,” Shiro says, tossing a pair of rolled-up socks at Keith’s head. He grumbles, still half-asleep, and rolls over to glare at his cousin. He was in the middle of a great nap.

“What?” he says irritably. Shiro gives him a glib smile. 

“We’re having dinner with the Holts tonight,” he informs him. Keith squints. 

“Who the fuck are the Holts?” 

“Language,” Shiro reprimands him. Keith honestly doesn’t know why he bothers anymore. He knows Keith doesn’t listen to him. “My friend Matt’s family. He has a sister about your age. Please try to be nice to her.” 

Keith groans. Great, socialization _and_ niceness? Sounds like a nightmare. Maybe he’s still dreaming. He rolls over and closes his eyes, hoping his dream will switch soon. Keith sees enough of Shiro when he’s awake. He does _not_ have the right to ruin his dreamland. 

Another pair of socks hits his head. “Keith,” Shiro warns. 

In retrospect, he really should have heeded the warning. The next thing he’s aware of is the feeling of his blankets being ripped away, exposing him to the cold, cruel world. 

“Why do you hate me.” Keith stares gloomily up into his cousin’s mockingly cheerful face. 

“Great, you’re awake!” Shiro says exuberantly. “Be ready to go at five.” 

  
  


_____

  
  


Keith squints at the girl sitting on the sofa across from him. She’s like, ten. Not exactly what Keith had in mind when Shiro said _“about your age,”_ but honestly, that’s probably for the best. Teenagers are the worst. 

She narrows her eyes right back at him. “My brother said I have to be nice to you,” she tells him. 

“Same,” Keith replies. “How old are you, like, ten?” 

“Eleven,” the girl corrects him. “And you’re what, twelve?” 

“Is that supposed to be an insult?”

The girl grins. Keith kind of wishes he’d listened when Shiro told him her name earlier. 

“I programmed the Roomba so it does whatever I want,” she informs him. Before he can ask why he’s supposed to care, she continues, “Sometimes I use it to move Matt’s stuff around so he thinks he’s being haunted. It’s hilarious. You want to go do that before dinner?” 

Keith grins back at her. “Let’s do it.”

  
  


_____

  
  


Shiro slams his head into his steering wheel. They haven’t pulled out of the Holts’ driveway yet. 

“I realize my mistake,” he says calmly, “and I regret all of my life decisions up until this point. I will not try to make you socialize ever again.” 

“What? No way, Pidge’s awesome,” Keith says exuberantly. He waves his phone in Shiro’s direction, proudly displaying the new number onscreen. “Look, I have her number now. I’m making friends. Aren’t you proud?” 

Shiro’s response is to slam his head into the steering wheel again. Keith grins and taps at his phone to open a conversation with Pidge. 

**(8:54 pm) To Pidge:**

**Shiro’s having a crisis.**

A moment later, Pidge responds. 

**(8:55 pm) From Pidge:**

**2 brothers down, the rest of the world to go 😏😈**

**_____**

“I just think it’s so crazy, how much is out there in the universe,” the kid next to him is chattering again. “I mean, just think of how much there still is to explore in _our_ galaxy, let alone all the others!”

Keith turns the page of his textbook. Shiro left the classroom to get more coffee five minutes ago and left them to “study your textbooks quietly, though you may talk to each other about subjects pertaining to the chapter’s information.” Keith internally curses his cousin for basically giving this kid the green-light to ramble to him. 

“I literally can’t comprehend that the universe is always expanding, yet we haven’t even made it back to the moon,” the kid goes on. “Like, come _on!_ Shouldn’t we be more advanced than this by now? It’s kind of ridiculous.” 

_We’ve never been to the moon._ It’s the first time Keith has been tempted to talk to this kid, but he resists the urge to correct him. He turns the page of his textbook. 

“Are you even reading that?” the kid questions. “Because if so, _wow_ you read fast. I mean, I know my dyslexia causes me to read slower than a lot of people, but still—“

“Do you ever stop talking?” Keith interrupts. He looks up to glare at the kid, who blinks at him, wide-eyed. He has the brightest blue eyes Keith has ever seen, and more freckles than the Milky Way galaxy has stars. He’s kind of pretty. Keith ignores that thought. “I’m trying to study,” he says. 

The kid wilts. “Oh . . . sorry,” he murmurs. “I was just—trying to make conversation.” 

“Well, maybe you should stop.” Keith returns his attention to his book. But out of the corner of his eye, he sees the way the kid sighs, shoulders slumping as he turns his gaze to his own book. He doesn’t try to talk to Keith again after that. 

Something in Keith’s chest writhes uncomfortably. Something that feels suspiciously like guilt. He tries to ignore it. _You're not here to make friends. You don’t owe that kid anything._

But the feeling stays with him through the rest of class, and even after, as he watches the kid pack up his stuff and leave the classroom. He feels, for some reason, the same way he had when he broke Mrs. Finkle’s antique vase and blamed it on the guy who digs up her rose bushes. 

It’s not a good feeling. 

**  
  
**

_____

“I think I messed up,” Keith tells his dad that night. 

He’s glad Asshole Roommate is out for the night; he said something about blah blah, study group, blah blah, more dedicated than _certain people,_ blah. No way does Keith want him to hear his confession to his dad about how he fucked up with the kid in class. 

His dad asks him, familiar warmth and understanding in his voice, _“What happened?”_

“Well, I—” Keith bites his lip. “I was kind of a jerk to the kid who sits next to me in Shiro’s class. And I mean, _yeah,_ the kid is annoying, and I was trying to study and he was distracting me, but I still . . . I feel kind of bad. I don’t know how to make it go away.” 

_“You know what you have to do,”_ his dad says knowingly. Keith sighs, because yeah, he does. 

“I hate people,” he says. His father chuckles. Keith wonders how his dad manages to be in such a good mood all the time. It sounds exhausting. 

_“I know you do,”_ his father says, with a note of something in his voice that Keith can’t identify. _“But let me know if you still feel the same after you apologize to that boy.”_

_Why wouldn’t I feel the same? People suck. Apologizing to people who suck sucks,_ Keith thinks, but doesn’t say. He just sighs. “Yeah, whatever.” 

  
  


_____

Keith trudges into Shiro’s classroom on Friday morning, drops his bag by his desk, and awkwardly turns to the kid who sits next to him. “Hey,” he says, shifting with discomfort. 

The kid doesn’t acknowledge him, except to huff like he’s annoyed. He turns the page of his textbook. Keith has a feeling that he’s not really reading it. 

“Listen,” he tries again, “I’m . . . I’m sorry for what I said Wednesday, okay? I know it was rude, but I’m not exactly the best with people. You can keep ignoring me, I don’t care, but I wanted to apologize so I can stop feeling bad about it. So, I’m sorry. There.” 

The kid doesn’t say anything, so Keith assumes that’s the end of it. The guilt fades somewhat, but he still feels the outline of it pressing against his ribs. He doesn’t know what more he can do to ease the weight. Apologizing was his only solution. 

A few minutes later, the kid turns to look at Keith, eyes narrowed like he’s trying to figure something out. 

“You really aren’t great with people, are you?” he says. 

“Your observation skills are astounding.” 

The kid snorts, then goes quiet. Considering. Then he says, “Alright. I forgive you.” 

The lingering weight in Keith’s chest dissipates. “Oh,” he says. Pretending not to care, he looks back to his textbook. Except he’s having a hard time concentrating on the words on the page. “Good.” 

The kid snorts again. He shifts so he’s facing Keith, rests his cheeks on his fist, and watches him. Keith can see every movement he makes from his peripheral vision. 

“I’m Lance,” he tells him. Smiles, something soft. Friendly. 

Keith looks back at him. He doesn’t smile, because smiling is for dorks, but he nods once, hoping it’s acceptable enough of an answer. “Keith.” 

Shiro sweeps into the room, clothes wrinkled, a somehow even more gigantic coffee tumbler clutched in a death grip. Keith _has_ to find out where he orders his travel mugs from. That’s ridiculously large. He doesn’t bother apologizing for being late anymore. “Turn to chapter seven in your textbooks,” he says. 

Keith doesn’t talk to Lance again for the rest of class, which is fine by him. Still, when class ends, Lance glances back at him from the doorway as he leaves, hand lifting in a small wave, mouth curved at one corner in a crooked smile. 

Keith doesn’t smile back, but he does wave. 

(Shiro will comment on it later, and Keith will punch him in the ribs and say, “Nope, didn’t happen.” He’ll hide his smile behind his textbook while he studies that night so his asshole roommate won’t see it, and when his dad calls, he’ll say, “Yeah, I fixed it. But we’re _not_ going to be friends.”) 

(His dad will chuckle at that. Keith won’t ask what that means.) 

_____

“Hey, Keith, wait up!” an annoyingly upbeat voice calls from behind him. Keith ducks his head and walks faster. _If you don’t acknowledge it, it will go away—_

“I finally caught you!” Lance exclaims, falling into step beside him. Keith eyes his taller peer, cursing internally. _Stupid gazelle legs._ Tall people are the worst. 

“Sorry, I can’t talk, I have an important thing to get to,” Keith says. He keeps walking. Lance keeps walking beside him. 

“Oh, cool, what thing? I could totally walk you there,” Lance offers. 

Keith keeps facing forward. Man, these Garrison hallways are never-ending, aren’t they? “Oh, um, yeah,” he fumbles for an excuse, “I have to—wash my hair. So really, you _don’t_ have to walk me anywhere. I’m good.” 

Lance snorts. “Yeah, right. Like _you_ wash your hair.” 

That stops Keith in his tracks. He turns to glare at Lance. “What is that supposed to mean? I wash my hair!”

Lance eyes him skeptically. His blue eyes glimmer with something that looks annoyingly like mirth. “Yeah, sure, buddy,” he says, “The grease on your roots begs to differ. I could maybe believe you wash it like, biannually. And that’s being generous.” 

Keith rolls his eyes. “Go away, Lance,” he says. He starts walking again. 

“Oh, come on!” Lance complains. He’s still following him. “You don’t get to be an ass to me, apologize, and then turn right back into an ass! What happened to all your character development?” 

“I murdered it.”

“Oh, please,” Lance says. Keith refuses to look at him, but it sounds like he’s rolling his eyes. “Look, I know you said you’re not the best with people, but I’m thinking: we could totally change that! Come have lunch with me.”

“No.”

“Why not?” Now he’s bringing out the puppy dog eyes. Keith still isn’t looking at him, but he _knows._

“I told you,” he sighs. “I’m not good with people. And I’m not here to make friends. The faster you accept that, the sooner we can go back to me ignoring you while you make friends with other annoying people.”

“Ohhh,” Lance says, dragging out the word an obnoxious second too long. “I get it.”

Keith hardly dares to hope. He side-eyes him. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Lance nods slowly. “Yeah. You’re an Edward Cullen type.”

Keith’s barely-conceived hope shatters into bland confusion. “What.”

“Edward Cullen,” Lance repeats, like that clears anything up. “Yanno. You’re all like _‘it’s better that we don’t become friends, Bella,’_ and I’m like, _‘that’s bullshit, you’re so mysterious and cool,’_ and in the end I wear you down with my stupid yet for some reason alluring quirkiness.” 

Keith stops walking again. He’s had to do that a ridiculous amount. At this rate, he won’t get to the teacher’s lounge in time to steal Iverson’s lunch. “I understood exactly zero percent of what you just said.”

Lance looks back at him. And then he gawks at him. 

“You—you don’t . . .?” he says. Incredulously, “You know, Twilight? Sparkly vampires? Dumb, teenage romantic drama? Comparing your attraction to your significant other to hardcore drugs?”

Keith blinks at him. It’s like the more Lance talks, the less sense he makes. He didn’t think that was possible.

“Wow.” Lance steps back, templing his chin on his hands. He nods, and then keeps nodding. “Okay. _O-kay._ So obviously, that’s the first thing we have to fix.”

“What?” Keith says, still not understanding. “Fix what? Do you _ever_ make sense?”

Lance nods again. “Right, so. Friday night. My dorm room. We’re having a movie marathon with my roommate.”

Then he smiles, all bright sunbeam flares, so unexpected that Keith doesn’t get to look away before the brightness burns his eyes. “See you then!” he exuberantly says, turns, and leaves. He takes a cloud of citrusy scent with him.

Keith stares after him, feeling as if he’s just experienced a major brain glitch. Into the empty hallway, he says, _“What?”_

  
  


_____

“Dad, help. The kid who sits next to me in Shiro’s class is trying to kidnap me on Friday and make me his friend.”

_“That’s great!”_ his dad says. Shit. That’s what Shiro said, too. 

“My family is just a bunch of traitors,” Keith says mournfully, “I have never felt this much betrayal in my life.”

His dad sighs, fond exasperation. _“Son,”_ he says. 

“No, no, it’s fine,” Keith sniffs. “I don’t need you anyway. I’ll just run away into the desert and live amongst the coyotes. If I’m lucky, maybe a loving coyote couple will adopt me. Also, please send care packages. I don’t think I could live off of coyote food. Donuts and coffee are important staples in my diet.”

His dad sighs again. “Keith,” he says, _“This is a good thing! You’re making friends!”_

“Somehow, I’m failing to see how that’s a good thing.”

“Good social circles are important for good mental health. Believe it or not, donuts and coffee don’t cure loneliness.”

“Sure they do,” Keith says. His dad sighs again.

_“Listen,”_ he says, _“I’m not gonna lie. I’ve been . . . kinda worried about you, kiddo. I know you say that me and Shiro are all the people you need, but I remember what it’s like to be a teenager. I know there are some things that you aren’t going to want to share with your family, and that’s okay. But I just want you to have other people—_ friends _—who you do share those things with. I never want you to feel alone.”_

_Like you do?_ Keith bites his lip before the words can surface. He rolls onto his back to stare at the bland, white ceiling. “Yeah. Okay,” he says. “I’ll . . . give it a try, I guess.”

_“That’s my boy,”_ his dad says. Keith closes his eyes and imagines his smile; imagines himself sitting next to him on their worn couch, boxes of takeout food between them. He’s overcome with such a strong wave of homesickness that it makes his throat hurt. 

“I miss you, Dad,” he mumbles. Asshole Roommate is at study group again, but he still doesn’t dare to say it louder. Things like emotions are hard for Keith. They always have been. 

They never have been for his dad. _“Miss you too, kid,”_ he says. The warmth in his voice is almost unbearable. _“I love you.”_

Keith swallows down the awful feeling balled up in his throat. He whispers, “I love you, too.”

  
  


_____

  
  


**(10:43 pm) To Pidge:**

**Do you ever just want to put all human emotions on a rocket ship and hurl them into the nearest black hole?**

**(11:25 pm) From Pidge:**

**Yep**

  
  


_____

“Keith!” Lance says as he swings open the door. He sounds surprised, like he’d halfway expected Keith to bail.

Maybe Keith is a little surprised too. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets, feeling more unsure of himself than he’s accustomed to. “Hey,” he says shortly.

“Oh, come in.” Lance steps aside. Keith glances down as he crosses the threshold and notices that Lance is wearing fuzzy socks with dragons on them. They have little horns sticking out of the front, and wings on the back. They’re . . . kind of cute, in a stupid way.

“This is Hunk,” Lance says, and Keith looks up, blinking in confusion, until he realizes there’s another kid in the room. He waves, expression as cheerful as Lance’s. 

“Hi, I’m Hunk,” he says. He pushes his orange bandana up his forehead from where it was beginning to slip. “You’ve probably never met me. I’m in the engineering program.”

“Oh. That’s cool,” Keith says. Truth be told, he doesn’t know much about the engineering program. Just that it’s way too much building spaceships but never flying them anywhere. Which is the opposite of what he wants to do.

“So I wasn’t sure what you liked, and I don’t have your number so I couldn’t exactly text you for toppings suggestions, but I uh, hope you like pizza?” Lance scratches the back of his neck, then gestures to the desk, where a closed pizza box sits. Keith’s mouth starts watering immediately. 

“How did you get pizza in here?” he curiously asks. “The Garrison bans like, all foods that taste halfway decent from school property.”

“Oh. Yeah, my sister works here,” Lance says with a grin, “She smuggled it in.”

Keith feels a stab of jealousy. Last time he asked Shiro to smuggle in contraband food to his dorm, he laughed at him. “Cool sister.”

“Isn’t she?” Awe colors Lance’s voice as he steps over to open the pizza box. He reaches in to pick up a slice of pizza and hisses, dropping it and raising his fingertips to his mouth. “Ouch! Hot.”

Keith snorts, unable to help himself. Lance glares at him. “Oh, so my pain amuses you? And to think I invited you into my home out of the goodness of my heart.”

“Is that how that went down.” Keith walks over to pluck up a slice of pizza, ignoring the way it burns his fingertips out of spite. He takes a bite of it, smiles at the incredulous expression on Lance’s face, and says, “Well, now you’re not going to be able to get rid of me. Regret your decision yet?”

The roof of his mouth is now scorched. He takes another bite anyway, his mouth exploding with the flavors of cheesy goodness and pepperoni, as Lance scoffs. “What? Never,” he declares. He turns, claps his hands, and exclaims, “Time to start the movie!”

Keith falls asleep somewhere between the evil vampires crashing the baseball game and the destruction of a perfectly good ballet studio. He’s woken up by Lance shaking his shoulder, loudly whispering: _“Psst. PSST._ Keith. It’s almost curfew.”

“Saying _‘psst’_ to wake someone up really isn’t calming when you’re practically yelling it,” Keith informs him groggily. He sits up, pops his back, and reaches to grab his jacket from where he tossed it to the end of the bed.

“Well, thanks for coming over,” Lance says at the door. He smiles, running his fingers through his hair, and adds, “I, uh, I hope we can do it again sometime?”

Keith looks back at him. Lance’s hair looks really cute when it’s all rumpled up, so he has a hard time stringing together a response. “Um. Yeah, sure. Thanks for the pizza.”

“Oh, yeah, of course.” Lance is still smiling. Keith looks away, and that’s when he remembers Hunk.

“It was nice to meet you,” he says, because believe it or not, his dad _did_ raise him with manners. The fact that he rarely chooses to use them is neither here nor there. 

Hunk gives him a two-finger salute. “Back at ya, buddy,” he says. 

Keith mentally sighs. Why couldn’t he have lucked out, and gotten _that_ guy as his roommate?

  
  


_____

_“How was your night?”_

Keith internally debates his response. _Good_ would make it sound like he cares. _Meh_ would disappoint his dad. 

_“That bad, huh?”_ his dad says. Shit, his dad sounds disappointed. In that subtle _I’m-trying-to-hide-it_ way. 

“No, it wasn’t—“ Keith bites his lip. “It was fine.”

His dad pauses. _“Yeah?”_

“Yeah.” Keith glances to the other side of the room. Asshole Roommate is on his bed, scrolling his phone with a blank look on his face. 

“His roommate’s pretty cool,” Keith says, “I’m thinking maybe next year I could steal him. I really got the short end of the stick this year.”

Predictably, Asshole Roommate looks up with a glare. “If anyone got the short end of the stick, it’s _me,_ Kogane,” he seethes. 

“While you are one hundred percent wrong, I’m so glad you feel that way. I’d hate for you to miss me too much next year.” Keith smiles easily. Asshole Roommate continues to glare. 

He sticks his tongue out. Asshole Roommate rolls his eyes at that, rolls over so that his back is facing Keith, and ignores him for the rest of the night

Seriously. That guy is way too easy. 

  
  


_____

  
  


So. Shit. Keith has friends. 

Three friends, to be exact. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened in the history of teenagers. 

Lance’s and Hunk’s contacts glare at him from the blue light of his phone, right there between his Dad’s, Shiro’s, and Pidge’s. Lance must have put their numbers in when Keith was over on Friday. His contact name, _Lancey Lance <3, _physically hurts to look at. 

**(6:45 am) From Lancey Lance <3: **

**good morning keef!! do u want 2 have lunch w me n hunk this afternoon??**

Keith blinks blearily at his screen. Couldn’t Lance just ask him that in class? It’s Monday. And also too early for this. 

He closes out the conversation and gets up to put on his horrid orange school uniform. He never responds, but he already knows when he sees Lance in class that he’s going to say yes anyway. 

  
  


_____

  
  


Friday night movies become a common thing. Keith complains to his dad every week, but truthfully, it’s not the worst thing in the world. At least he gets free pizza out of it. 

He gets to watch Lance mouth along to the entire script of whatever movie they put on, face adopting stupid, cute expressions when he gets really into it. Even though it makes Keith’s heart do stupid, annoying things, that part’s not so bad either.

_____

School goes on, and it’s as horrible as it was the very first week. Keith learns nothing. Asshole Roommate becomes even more of an asshole. Shiro’s teaching method becomes more and more chaotic, probably due to his ever-increasing tumbler mug size. 

But his dad’s voice on the other end of the line stays constant. Which Keith needs, because with every month that passes, he grows more and more homesick. Everything here feels so pointless that sometimes he’s tempted to steal one of the Garrison’s hovercrafts and just _go,_ not stopping until he’s back in the comfort of his front yard. 

But he can’t do that. So when he wants to run away, he goes to the only place he can be truly alone. 

The sky is a dusky pink when Keith pushes open the metal door, hinges creaking as he spills himself out into the desert sunset. He breathes it in, dirt and sage, and lets the smell remind him of home. The bed of his dad’s old red pickup truck and nights of mapping out the constellations. It’s not late enough to be able to see them, but he sits down to dangle his legs over the side of the building and imagines that he can. 

It always comforts him to think of how, no matter the colors or clouds that fill the sky, the stars are always right there behind them. Just waiting for him to join them.

His mom is somewhere out there. Waiting for him. 

_I’m going to find you,_ he thinks to the sky. _One day, I’ll leave this awful place behind, and I’ll join you wherever you are. And then I’ll bring you home, and me, and you, and Dad will be complete again._

He’ll never have to miss anything again. He stares until the grittiness of his eyes could be mistaken for the sand that blows in on the breeze, watches until the sun dips below the horizon and it’s time to go back inside. 

  
  


_____

“Why do you never go to lunch with us?” Lance curiously demands, falling into step beside Keith after class. “We never see you in the cafeteria, so clearly you’re not trying to avoid _us,_ specifically. Where do you go?”

“The cafeteria food is garbage,” Keith says breezily, “so usually I break into Shiro’s apartment and steal his Hot Pockets.”

“Huh,” Lance says thoughtfully. “But doesn’t he ever notice that they’re missing?”

Keith snorts. “No. He has a whole deep freezer just filled with Hot Pockets and pizza rolls. It’s actually kind of sad.”

“Ah.” Lance goes quiet beside him. Too quiet. 

Keith looks over to find that Lance is smiling back at him in the way he thinks makes him look charming. (Keith steadfastly ignores that it _does.)_ He wiggles his eyebrows, like the grin wasn’t obvious enough. 

“Hey, Keith . . .” 

Which is how Keith ends up breaking his friends into his cousin’s apartment for lunch.

“Wow, I’ve always wanted to see the inside of Professor Shirogane’s apartment . . .” Lance muses when Keith lets them in. “I’ve got to admit, though, I always pictured it as a little more . . . exciting. You know, considering he’s practically a celebrity.”

Keith snorts, heading straight for the kitchen. “Yeah, Shiro’s nowhere near as exciting as people make him out to be. He’s actually a disaster.”

“Huh.” Lance goes over to examine Shiro’s ridiculously large videogame collection. Hunk trails after Keith. 

“Won’t Shiro notice we’ve been here?” he says fretfully. “Just, I’d hate to cause any inconvenience. I can pay for the Hot Pockets if you want.” 

“Seriously, don’t worry about it,” Keith reassures him. “Shiro rarely notices anything. When he’s here, he’s either sleeping, playing videogames, or lecturing me on the importance of vitamins.” 

“Vitamins are important,” Lance says, finally joining them. 

Keith rolls his eyes. “Sure. And the moon landing was real.” Lance furrows his eyebrows like he’s confused, opens his mouth to say something. Keith opens the deep freezer before he can, pulls out two boxes at random, and says, “Ham and cheese with croissant crust or meatballs and mozzarella with garlic buttery crust?” 

They eat their Hot Pockets on Shiro’s pristine white couch, because they’re rebels like that. Lance makes ridiculously profane noises while he eats his that Keith fixedly doesn’t think about. “It’s decided,” Lance declares around a mouthful of melted cheese and processed meat, “I’m in love with you for this, Kogane. You don’t understand how much this Hot Pocket means to me.” 

Keith thinks back on the Garrison’s cafeteria food and suppresses a shudder. Still, he rolls his eyes and sits back, kicking his dirty combat boots up onto Shiro’s glass coffee table. “Whatever you say, Lance.”

(He ignores the way his heart flutters as his brain replays the words: _“I’m in love with you.”_ It’s probably a reaction to the artificial calories clogging up his arteries. Not worth thinking about, really.) 

  
  


_____

“My asshole roommate kicked me out so he could take his practice quizzes in peace while the library’s still closed from that toxic chemical explosion,” Keith sighs glumly into his phone. “So I have to hang out at Shiro’s. It’s so horrible, Dad. He won’t stop talking about vitamins.” 

“The gummy ones from Walmart don’t count!” Shiro is still going on. _Please make him stop._ “Those are filled with artificial colors and sugar to make kids eat them, but they lack any real necessary nutrients. So no, Keith, you cannot take one of those dinosaur-shaped chewable vitamins and call it a day. And vitamins, while important, _do not_ take the place of vegetables. You still need those.” 

“Says the guy who exclusively eats vegetable-less Hot Pockets,” Keith shoots back. Shiro gasps, offended. 

“That is not true,” he says, words clipped with indignation. “Some of them have broccoli!” 

“Wow,” Keith drily replies, “One whole vegetable.” 

“And onions. Those are a vegetable, right?” 

“Technically, I think they’re a root,” Keith says thoughtfully. “Hey, Dad? Are onions a vegetable or a root?” 

_“Onions are a root vegetable, son.”_

Keith pulls away his phone to stare at it in disbelief. “Why do you insist on making things up to mess with me, Dad? What did I ever do to you?” 

Later, when he and his dad say goodnight, Shiro finally decides to be done with his vitamin rant. “Hey, you want a Hot Pocket?” 

“Sure,” Keith says agreeably. He opens his text messages to reply to a text Pidge sent him hours ago. When Shiro comes back, he has six warmed up Hot Pockets on a tray and a confused look on his face. 

“I think I accidentally bought less Hot Pockets than usual,” he says. “Either that, or I’ve just been eating more of them lately. My freezer’s running low.” 

“Weird,” Keith says. He picks up one of the chicken, cheddar, and broccoli ones, hissing when the cheese burns his fingers, and takes a bite. It has the audacity to burn his mouth. He takes a second bite anyway, deciding he’ll ignore the betrayal just this once. 

“Yeah,” Shiro says. He picks up his own Hot Pocket and shrugs. “Weird.” 

  
  


_____

“Dad,” Keith says, voice thick. He’s not upset. He’s really not. He’s fine, he’s _whatever,_ he’s—

On the roof. It’s way past curfew, but he’s up here anyway, because the stars feel closer to home than his awful, horrible white ceiling. And he’s—fine, maybe he’s a little sad, isn’t he allowed that much? He’s a teenager, with, like, feelings and shit. 

“Son?” His dad’s voice is groggy, like he woke him up. _Shit._ He’s a horrible son. He should hang up. He should—

“What’s wrong?” his dad asks, voice soft, like he _knows._ All Keith’s embarrassing repressed emotions come out in a flood. 

“N-nothing,” he sniffs at first, and then pauses. “E- _everything._ Dad, I want to come home. Everything here is bad and, and I miss you all the time, and I want to sleep in my bed because my dorm bed is like sleeping on rocks, and I _hate_ having a roommate because he snores, and there’s so many _rules_ and I can’t paint my nails and I have to wake up at—at _five forty-five every freaking morning,_ and it _sucks._ I’m not learning anything, and the worst part is I don’t even know if being here is worth it. How is this place going to help me find Mom? I might be better off just—just building my own spaceship than staying here for four years. Everything feels so . . . so _empty.”_

“Kiddo.” There’s shuffling on his dad’s end, like he’s sitting up. “You’ve been there for months, and you haven’t told me this? How long have you been feeling this way?” 

Keith shrugs. Then he remembers his dad can’t see him, and he mumbles, “Maybe since I got here?” 

“Keith,” his dad says. He sounds really serious, now. “You know I would never make you stay somewhere if you’re really unhappy, right?” 

Keith rubs at his dry eyes. “But—but you’re spending so much money on this place . . .”

“No amount of money is worth more than you,” his dad says firmly. He sighs. “Listen,” he continues, “You’re so close to the end of the year. Let’s try to stick it out, and if you still feel this way at the end of the year, we’ll talk about new schools over the summer, okay?” 

Keith bites his lip. “Okay,” he sniffs. He lays down so he can look up at the sky without straining his neck; up above, he can make out all the constellations his dad taught him when he was little. Orion, Perseus, Leo. 

_“I’m a Leo, yanno,”_ he remembers Lance telling him one morning in class, when he was pretending not to listen. _“Which is kind of funny, since you’re a Scorpio, and those are some of the_ least _compatible star signs. We should be fighting each other all the time because Scorpios are normally super annoying and hot-headed, but instead you’re like, decent.”_

If Keith leaves the Garrison, he thinks he’ll miss Lance. He doesn’t know how that happened; he didn’t mean to actually _like_ anyone when he came here, but Lance is annoyingly persistent when it comes to shoving his way into Keith’s life. No matter how hard he tries to deny it, he thinks Lance is funny, and nice, and charming, in a weird sense of the word. And he’s pretty, which certainly doesn’t hurt. 

_“Just hang in there, kid,”_ his dad tells him. _“And remember I’m here whenever you want to talk. You can tell me anything, alright?”_

“Yeah.” The stars are blurring in Keith’s vision, but he finds it within himself to smile. “I know.” 

_“Good,”_ his dad says. _“I love you, Keith.”_

“I love you, too.” 

  
  


_____

  
  


“Professor Shirogane’s making us choose a partner for our final project,” Lance cheerfully says when Keith collapses onto his desk. Keith lifts his head to give him a questioning look. Lance points at the white board. 

**“WENT FOR A COFFEE RUN, BE BACK . . . SOMETIME. PROBABLY NOT BEFORE CLASS ENDS.** **USE THIS PERIOD TO CHOOSE YOUR END-OF-YEAR-PROJECT PARTNER AND START BRAINSTORMING PROJECT** **IDEAS. PLEASE DON’T TELL IVERSON I’M SKIPPING CLASS.”**

“Wow,” Keith says. “Honestly, I’m not surprised.” 

“No one is,” Lance confirms. “So, whaddaya say?” 

Keith blinks at him. “To what?” 

“To being my partner,” Lance says. The undertone in his voice says, _come on, Keith, keep up!_

“Oh,” Keith says, “Yeah, sure. As long as you do all the work.” 

Lance narrows his eyes at him. Keith heaves a long-suffering sigh. Seriously, _no one_ around here has a semi-functioning sense of humor. “Kidding.” 

Lance’s expression smooths out into an easy smile. “Great! So I’m thinking: _globular clusters.”_

  
  


_____

Why did Lance have to be so into globular clusters. 

“Shiro would be fine with the literal minimum effort,” Keith complains, as Lance loads yet another thing into his arms. So far he’s carrying two folded blankets, a basket of snacks, and two pairs of binoculars. “Why do you want to actually conduct a study when we could just . . . I don’t know, do a two-minute Google search?” 

“Aw, what’s the fun in that?” Lance says good-naturedly. Too good-naturedly. Keith scowls at him. How he procured such a positive friend, the universe will never know. Sometimes Lance is so sunshiney that Keith wants to throw up a black hole just to balance it out. 

“At least tell me we’re sneaking onto the roof to do this. I’d love to tell Shiro that we obtained our information illicitly.” 

“Nope!” Lance proudly says, popping the _p._ “I got the okay from Shiro after class earlier. Gave me a permission pass and everything.” 

Keith grumbles under his breath the whole way to the roof. 

But, he has to admit, once they’ve spread out the blanets and laid out the snacks and set up their collapsible telescope (Keith stole it from Shiro’s collection; he won’t notice it’s missing), it’s not . . . the _worst_ set-up in the world. In fact, compared to most things he’s done for school projects at the Garrison—it’s actually kind of . . . pleasant. 

“See?” Lance grins knowingly at him. “Isn’t this roma— _fun?”_ He coughs. “So much fun, right?” 

Keith sprawls out across the blankets and sighs. The sky above is already glittering with stars. “Okay, _fine,_ it’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had. Not that that’s saying much.” 

“What? All my ideas are great!” 

Keith lifts his head to squint at him. “You want to sink the remaining twenty-nine percent of land on Earth so humans will have no choice but to evolve into mermaids.” 

“And that’s a great idea,” Lance pronounces. “Your point?” 

Keith sighs again. “Whatever. Give me a pair of binoculars.” 

All Keith’s complaining aside, he loves the stars. Always has. He could stare at them forever, from the best telescope to ever be built on Earth, or with only his eyes. There’s a certain reverence that comes with star-gazing: accepting your place in the universe, accepting that no matter what bullshit is going on in the world, the stars will always be bigger and burn brighter. It makes him feel small in a good way. It’s not something he’s ever had to explain before. He’s not sure he’d be able to, if he had to. 

He and Lance work on their project. They get the bulk of it done fairly quickly, because— _ahem—_ they could’ve just Googled everything that’s going into their research paper. But Keith’s going to give the complaining a rest, because when they finish with that, Lance lays down next to him on the blankets and holds out the bag of chips he brought to share. Keith accepts one, and their obnoxious crunching fills the otherwise silent night. 

Okay, actually, Keith has one thing left to complain about. The chewing is too obnoxious when there’s nothing to interrupt it. 

He keeps his gaze fixed on the sky, salt-covered fingers reaching for another chip, and quietly says, “Sometimes I come up here when I want to be alone.” 

He isn’t looking, but he can feel when Lance turns his head to look at him. “Yeah?” 

His voice is curious. But not . . . prodding, like he normally is. Keith exhales slowly through his mouth, and nods. “Yeah. It’s—quiet up here. Makes me not so homesick when I think about how the sky here is the same as the one back home.” 

“Oh.” Lance turns his face back to the sky. “You get homesick?” 

Keith closes his eyes. “All the time.” 

“Oh,” Lance repeats. A long moment passes, and then—“Me too.” 

Keith knows. Lance is always really open about his emotions. He’s heard Lance give poetic eulogies to his mamá’s _ropa vieja_ more times than he can count. Lance has given so many descriptive monologues about Varadero beach that he doesn’t even need to see it to know in full detail what it looks like. But he doesn’t say that. He feels like this is a moment where being a smartass isn’t really appropriate. Not that he’s ever cared about that before. He totally doesn’t care. At all. 

He’s not sure what compels him to tell Lance. Maybe it’s the mood of the night, or the annoyance wrought by their continued crunching, or the way he thinks he knows Lance better than he’s ever known anyone who’s not his family. But he blinks his eyes back open to the sky, settles his hands onto his stomach, and confesses: “I’m thinking about not coming back in the fall.” 

“What?” There’s light rustling, and Keith finally turns his head as Lance props himself up on an elbow to look down at him. “What do you mean, you might not come back?” 

“I mean. I’m pretty sure you just said it exactly, so.” 

“You have to come back,” Lance says. There’s an unexpected amount of feeling in his voice. “You _have_ to.” 

Keith swallows the rise of feeling in his own throat. “For what?” he wonders, and he wonders, for a moment, if maybe he’s really asking Lance to give him a reason. A _real_ reason, without knowing about Keith’s stupid, childish hopes and dreams of putting his family back together. “An education that’s practically worthless? The people who say I only got in here because of Shiro, and don’t actually deserve my place? For everything to be exactly the same, every single fucking day, and never get any sense of fulfillment out of it? For _what,_ Lance? It all feels pointless.” 

“For Shiro,” Lance says steadily. His eyes, Keith finds, are a deeper blue than he’s ever seen anywhere else. Faraway galaxies could be painted in that shade of blue. “You’re practically brothers. You think he wouldn’t miss you, if you weren’t here? And what about Hunk? What about _me?”_

Keith looks away. Back to the stars. They aren’t glittering as bright, now, with the imprint of Lance’s eyes still coloring his eyelids when he blinks. “You barely know me. You’re not going to miss me that much.” 

“Yeah, Keith, _I_ _will,”_ Lance says. And that’s when Keith’s heart freezes, because—oh. 

He returns his eyes to Lance. Lance’s mouth is a thin line, face more serious than he’s ever seen it. “So what if we’ve only known each other a few months?” he says, voice low. “You’re one of my best friends. And don’t lie and say I’m not one of yours. Don’t lie and say I don’t mean _something_ to you. Enough that you’d at least miss me if you left.” 

Keith doesn’t tell Lance that, if he even _has_ a best friend, then it’s him. He doesn’t know what his friend means to him, really. But he might be the one good thing about this place. The only thing, in this shitty establishment, that might not be a complete waste of time. 

Except, it would be, wouldn’t it? If he left the Garrison and never saw Lance again, then . . . then it all means nothing. Weekends spent watching movies on Lance’s laptop, lunches spent breaking into his cousin’s apartment, late nights spent texting each other stupid memes when they can’t sleep. And he supposes they could keep in contact, even if he didn’t, but they haven’t known each other for so long that he trusts Lance not to forget about him. 

And he’s not sure he can trust himself not to forget about Lance, either. 

“Just—think about it,” Lance says. He lays back down, mirroring Keith’s position of resting his hands on his stomach, one on top of the other. “Before you say there’s nothing worth staying for, at least _consider_ us. It’s not fair, if you don’t. Just. I don’t want to miss you, Keith.” 

Keith doesn’t know what to say to that. He returns his gaze to the stars, naming them in his head like he always does, but his heart isn’t in it. Suddenly, things aren’t as simple as they could have been. All the things that made sense in his head before abandon him, leave him with fragments of thoughts that he can’t fathom how to string together again. Nothing makes sense, but the most confusing thing of all might be Lance: starry-eyed and beautiful, with more emotion in a single glance than Keith thinks he could ever show in an entire lifetime. 

  
  


_____

  
  


“DAD!” Keith flings himself into his father’s arms, dropping his bag in the process. His dad laughs, the low, rumbling one that Keith can feel in his bones, and squeezes him so tightly that all the air leaves his lungs.

“Hi, buddy,” his dad says. He ruffles Keith’s hair as he pulls away, grinning as he settles his hands onto his shoulders. “Look at you! You’ve grown so much. Looks like you’re due for a haircut, huh?”

“Nah,” Keith ducks his head to hide his own grin. “Lance keeps complaining because it’s starting to look like a mullet, and it’s funny to watch him get annoyed. I think I’ll leave it for awhile.”

“Really now.” His dad’s voice is light with humor. He reaches down to pick up Keith’s abandoned duffle bag, slinging it onto his shoulder. “Do I get to meet this Lance character?”

“No, he’s already on his plane,” Keith tells him. They said goodbye this morning before Lance left. He still feels all tingly from when he hugged him; it’s pretty weird, and he’s starting to wonder if he should be concerned. 

“Can we get burgers for lunch?” he asks, because honestly, the tingly thing’s not that big a deal. But burgers are _always_ a big deal. “Please, _please,_ I’m begging you. I haven’t had a burger in _months.”_

“Sure, kid,” his dad chuckles. “Where’s your cousin? We can’t wait around on him all day.”

“I’m here, I’m here,” Shiro says as he appears. He has a backpack and a travel mug, and to no one’s surprise, the mug is bigger than the backpack. They’re going to have to put that in the back of the truck. “We all set?”

“Yep,” Keith says. He follows his dad to the truck, heart feeling lighter than it has in months. He has a lot to think about over the summer, but for now, all he cares about is that he’s with his dad again, about to go _home,_ where he’ll spend the next three months eating nothing but burgers and greasy, Garrison-prohibited pizza. And _donuts._ Can’t forget the donuts. He looks at his dad and grins. “I am _so ready_ to go home.” 

**Author's Note:**

> i read an entire article ranking hot pocket flavors from worst to best for this first chapter so...clearly, we can see where my priorities in life lie. also, chapter title comes from "its nice to have a friend" by taylor swift, because i can't seem to go a single fic without referencing her lol
> 
> thanks for reading! kudos and comments are always appreciated <3


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